


paper planes

by mejay



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, M/M, OOC, Romance, hongsang rise, i don't know how to tag sorry, so he can't understand and express his feelings, they're soft, woosan are only mentioned sorry, yeosang has an alexithymia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mejay/pseuds/mejay
Summary: yeosang writes on white paper sheets: “I feel everything you taught me and I feel it for you” almost every day and folds these into paper planes, hoping that one day one of them will fall directly into the hongjoong’s hands. because he still doesn’t know how to say it out loud.
Relationships: Kang Yeosang/Kim Hongjoong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	paper planes

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. sorry, English is my third language so if there are any mistakes or incorrectly used words, please forgive me (´｡• ω •｡`) ♡  
> 2\. alexithymia isn't a disease actually, according to Wikipedia, its " is a personal trait characterized by the subclinical inability to identify and describe emotions experienced by one's self or others", so I used it in my work, but the way I described it may (and more likely actually is) not very accurate.  
> 3\. enjoy <3

“smile”.

yeosang flattens a white paper sheet on his lap and gently runs his fingertips over the only word written on it — ink is a bit faded, places of former folds spread under his fingers with paper wrinkles, and someone else’s handwriting spreads in the corners of his eyes with exactly same subtle wrinkles — yeosang smiles. the way hongjoong taught him to.

maybe, if hongjoong saw him now, he would call this smile forming more in his eyes than on his lips _“soft”_. maybe, he’d feel the urge to kiss it. 

  
now yeosang remembers it clearly — it was the first time they met. yeosang remembers the rustle of still-green foliage above his head; the wind, messing with his a bit overgrown hair; the sun, already beginning to set, spilling its golden light through the branches swaying in the wind, and sometimes very accurately hitting his eyes.

it was the beginning of september. his second semester at the university. 

after a long break, yeosang had one more lecture and he sat on a not very convenient bench in the courtyard between the buildings of the faculty of art and the pedagogical faculty, leafing through the pages of the textbook, which had turned slightly yellow from time, and reading the materials of future lectures — he wasn’t that diligent actually, there was simply nothing more to do.

in the middle of his reading, yeosang was distracted by some extraneous noise — it seemed, someone was arguing loudly aside — and then he heard a soft paper rustling: looking down at the textbook on his lap, he saw a very ordinary paper plane landed exactly between the book pages. 

kang looked around, trying to find a possible sender, but the small space around him seemed to be empty, and those few students who were a little away did not pay any attention to him.

the paper plane was very simple — you learn to make such things in kindergarten or elementary school at the very first origami classes. at first glance, there wasn’t anything written on it too. an ordinary white sheet of paper, so white that in the sunlight it was blinding his eyes. yeosang held it in his fingers, not knowing what to do with it, (he even thought to unfold it), but then he looked up and noticed _him_.

he stood leaning against the iron railing on the roof of the faculty of arts — it was not very large, three-story building, so yeosang could easily see him from below. he stood with his eyes closed, sunlight on his smiling face. (now yeosang would call his smile, perhaps, _“dreamy”_ ). he had bright red hair flaming in the sun. it was… _pretty._

as if he could feel yeosang’s gaze, he opened his eyes, looked down, smiled a little wider noticing the paper plane in yeosang’s hands, and moved away from the edge of the roof.

yeosang looked at his watch — a little more than twenty minutes remained before his next class, so he decided to return the plane to its owner. for some reason, he didn’t even doubt that the plane belonged to that guy. he had no doubt that the latter was still on the roof too.

kang knew that access to the roof was free, but he did not know what one could to do there when most of the classes had already ended. he went upstairs anyway and saw the guy lying with his backpack under his head and covering his eyes from the sun with the back of his hand. yeosang could not help himself and asked quietly: “what are you doing?”.

“photosynthesizing”, — the guy answered with a grin, without even looking at yeosang.

yeosang frowned a little, thinking and staying silent for a long minute, and only when he remembered that he had come to return the paper plane, he spoke again:

“you’re not a plant to photosynthesize. and it seems to be yours”.

the guy finally took his hand away from his face, and yeosang met his sly gaze of almost black eyes, which was so convenient for a slight grin. this gaze lingered briefly, but still quite noticeably, on yeosang’s face, and then moved to the paper plane that was held out to him.

“yes, it’s mine. but I want you to keep it”.

now yeosang would call what he felt an embarrassment, but then it was only a slightly faster heartbeat and a warmth that rose from somewhere in his chest to his face.

  
yeosang didn’t even remember that he knew the guy’s name. in the first semester seonghwa-sunbae, supervised their small group of freshmen, said that if there would be any difficulties, and he wasn’t around, they, the freshmen, could always contact kim hongjoong. “how will you find him? believe me, you will definitely see a restless red-haired something on campus more than once. ask anyone and they will tell you where he is”.

  
yeosang did not unfold the plane then, putting it between the pages of the textbook, and for a long time had been using it as a bookmark.

  
now he looks at the white paper with a strange feeling that he can’t name even if he wants to.

what if hongjoong wanted this paper plane to fall on his knees, yeosang’s knees?..

***

yeosang’s life is not about attachments.

he is not insensitive, just does not know how to show emotions. recognize and understand them. verbalize.

it’s just that he has a little difficulty opening up to other people, according to san, who joined yeosang in the last weeks of the second semester. they only have shared classes of world history and general psychology, but choi considers them friends. yeosang doesn’t mind, but responds to numerous messages in ka-talk in monosyllables, sometimes doesn’t respond at all when he forgets. surprisingly, san doesn’t even take offence.

“you know, it’s good that you took a general psychology class. it will help you sort yourself out a little” — san says, gesturing emotionally with chopsticks, at one of the lunches, when they are sitting at a large wooden table outside. 

yeosang does not know when they started this habit of dining together. it’s just that choi drags him outside on every lunch break, when the weather allows, and then talks nonstop about something, without asking yeosang for a return interest.

that’s probably why yeosang doesn’t mind hanging out with him.

san is noisy and bright, but he directs all his emotions to himself or, bypassing yeosang, to other people and other events.

that’s probably why kang isn’t tired of being around all the time.

“you’re not indifferent, it’s just that you have a little less empathy than the others, I think”.

“what san wants to say is that you’re just a bit of a psychopath” — adds wooyoung, who has recently been, like, san-plus-one for yeosang. for his words, wooyoung gets a kick in the knee from san. yeosang understands that jung is joking, but only frowns slightly — where another would laugh, he can only look serious. he just doesn’t know how to smile very well. he’s not able to take other people’s words to heart, too.

“what I _really_ want to say”, — san throws another rebuke at wooyoung, this time with a look, — “is that you need more friends. or, you know, just communicate more with others. just get used to human interaction a little bit.

yeosang thinks about this for the first time.

***

  
kim hongjoong is strange — to put it mildly.

yeosang remembers him suddenly — accidentally bumping into him in one of the corridors of the administrative building. yeosang looks into almost black eyes, what makes it feel _strange_ inside; looks at fingers clutching the fabric of a light denim jacket on his shoulder; looks at other’s smile, while the guy opposite apologizes and asks if he, yeosang, is OK; looks at bright red hair — and something clicks in his head, he remembers the words of seonghwa-sunbae.

kim hongjoong. _a red-haired something._

yeosang nods that yes, he is fine, gets another big smile in response, and looks at hongjoong who is already running away.

and then yeosang finds himself scrolling through hongjoong’s instagram account for the second day in a row.

yeosang is scrolling through hongjoong’s instagram for the second day in a row not because he is obsessed — there are just too many photos. 

hongjoong posts several series of photos every day — they don’t even have filters on them. funny drawn monsters in a lecture notebook, a cloudless sky, a palette with mixed oil paints, barely lit lanterns at the dusk, homeless animals, sketches with bright liners or pencils, a close-up shot of new piercing, windows that reflect the setting sun, funny photos of his friends and his own self-portraits, that are so obviously trying to repeat children’s photos (hongjoong posts them toghether).

hongjoong’s instagram is a jumble of colours, textures, and lines. yeosang doesn’t know him very well, doesn’t know him almost at all (but he starts noticing older somewhere nearby much more often now), but it seems to him that hongjoong is just like that himself — a jumble of colours, textures, and lines.

for yeosang, he’s strange, full of no-reason-laughter and some incomprehensible _cheerfulness_ — yeosang thinks that this word from explanatory dictionary most accurately fits hongjoong’s personality.

he seems to glow from within.

for yeosang, hongjoong is strange, but perhaps yeosang finds it charming, how hongjoong finds even smallest things charming. 

it takes a long time for yeosang to check his inner feelings with an article in an online dictionary, and he comes to the conclusion that he probably finds hongjoong himself charming.

kang looks at the older’s broad smile in one of the selfies and thinks: _“what if...?”_

***

  
yeosang doesn’t know why he accepts san’s invitation to yet another student party. more precisely, technically, he doesn’t even agree to go: he just nods after skipping san’s question. but then, listening to san’s happy chatter, yeosang thinks — well, let it be.

sometimes yeosang simply observes — not being able to be involved emotionally, he looks and analyzes, remaining indifferent on the sensory level. this is not true that he doesn’t know how to understand others at all, it just takes him much more time than others. he has long learned to be attentive to all the little things, convincing himself and accepting that it is important. it’s impossible to remain aloof all the time. he doesn’t consider himself inferior and doesn’t feel the need to convince others of it, but when you’re not being looked at as if you’re planning to destroy the world, it’s still easier.

at the party, yeosang also just watches others, taking a place somewhere in a corner with a glass of low-alcohol drink from san, who seems to be everywhere at once. but loud music, close dancing in the crowd, other people’s hot intimate conversations and what is much closer — for the first time kang feels a little strange in the surrounding environment. 

probably, it’s because he suddenly thinks about kim hongjoong and about whether he likes parties or not.

and yeosang doesn’t know what is weirder: the thought of kim hongjoong or the way it occupies him.

  
from drinking alcohol, even if it’s low, yeosang begins to feel a little dizzy and the air around him seems to become stuffy. yeosang remembers that san said that there was a swimming pool in the backyard, and decides to get some air.

surprisingly, the backyard is almost empty: only one figure can be seen in the dim street light — and yeosang feels his heartbeat quicken as he realizes that it's kim hongjoong who is sitting at the edge of the pool. in his hands — inserted one in one plastic drinking straws, and on the surface of the water, yeosang notices, as he comes closer, a paper boat, which hongjoong pushes with this straw-transformer, directing it from side to side. he looks very tiny and childlike, crouching down with his head on his shoulder, hugging his knees and smiling — yeosang doesn’t know, as always, what he feels, but this time he wants to understand it. so much.

hongjoong’s smile widens when he sees yeosang behind him, and he nods at the space next to him, inviting the younger one to sit down too.

“don’t like the party?” — kang asks, trying to start the conversation, watching as one awkward movement of hongjoong’s trembling hand sinks the paper boat.

“I had a little too much to drink” — the older man shakes his head, sighing and putting the pipe aside. “what about you?”

“same”.

the silence that hangs between them when hongjoong nods several times in understanding and closes his eyes wearily is not ideal — no one has turned down the music in the house specifically for the two of them, and not the most sober shouts from the open windows are the best reminder that the party is in full swing, but it is all perceived as if it is happening somewhere behind thick, thick glass.

on the other side is everyone else, the rest of life, and on this side is kim hongjoong, who seems to be doing his best to stay awake.

yeosang silently looks at the relaxed face of hongjoong next to him and realizes that he wants to touch it with his fingers. touch this childish pout. and long lashes, too. like a blind man, he wants to feel with his fingertips, how the corners or these lips lift as they're turning into a smile. how these lashes flutter when hongjoong thinks of something undoubtedly pleasant (like right now; perhaps he has already fallen into a doze, and is already dreaming something?). he wants to smooth the crease between his brows with his fingers when hongjoong will be angry. he wants to feel the blush on hongjoong’s cheeks when he will be embarrassed. yeosang just wants to understand hongjoong so much. for the first time in his life, he wants to understand someone so badly.

not to read the definition of each emotion in the dictionary, but to feel them all. understand them.

“sunbae?” — yeosang himself flinches when he hears his voice slightly hoarse from silence and heavy thoughts, but hongjoong only draws out a sleepy “hmmm?” in response. _“teach me how to feel”._

yeosang understands that he must be sounding like a madman.

but when hongjoong opens his eyes, his eyelids heavy with drunk alcohol, yeosang sees only an almost black iris and, it seems, stars under an oily film of milky sleepiness (he knows that these are highlights of garden lanterns and garlands hung on the fence opposite, but for the first time he understands what people mean when they say that they see universes in other people’s eyes), but no reproach or laughter.

hongjoong is terribly serious when he asks:

“feel what?”

yeosang shrugs, not realizing how much importance he puts into the simple:

“everything”. 

it seems, yeosang’s words take all the sleepiness out of hongjoong. 

  
yeosang almost doesn’t catch how they find themselves on the roof of a tower block: the rapid departure from the party (kang did not even say goodbye to san), the actually long ride on one of the last buses, and even the seemingly endless climb up the stairs to the roof itself — everything sweeps past him. all his attention is focused on the cold fingers that grip his wrist, on the feeling of someone else’s shoulder pressed tightly against his own (hongjoong allows yeosang to sit at the window seat in the bus, and then he presses himself close, looking with interest at the night city passing through the glass), on older’s heavy breath after the seventh or eighth flight of stairs.

for some reason, all this seems insanely important, but why — yeosang does not know. again. 

when they all the way up, it seems inappropriate for yeosang to ask any questions, so he silently waits for an explanation from hongjoong, who, having recovered his breath from the climb, goes to the very edge of the roof, where there are no fences at all. and yeosang can’t say why, but he doesn’t like the fact that hongjoong is so close to this very edge; when the older takes another step forward, climbing on a small ledge, yeosang feels how cold and heavy everything inside him turns, how his heart begins to pound — he only feels an urgent need to express his protest to the actions of hongjoong.

he feels it pressing on him, his breathing quickening, but he can’t tell why. he doesn’t know how to put his condition into words.

so that hongjoong would understand and stop.

yeosang frowns as he approaches the older and pulls him by the hem of his loose shirt.

going down hongjoong, for some reason, is smiling.

“I like the way the city looks from here”, — hongjoong says, not looking at yeosang.

“I don’t like what you did”, — yeosang admits after a long minute, taking a few steps from the edge of the roof and pulling hongjoong along by the sleeve of his shirt.

“you mean, bringing you here?”

yeosang shakes his head.

“being too close to the edge”.

the smile on hongjoong’s lips gradually pales until it disappears completely — he looks serious again, intently, as if looking for some deception in yeosang’s face, as if waiting for some catch from the younger, and yeosang does not know what to say to return the smile on hongjoong’s face. getting closer, hongjoong lingers with his gaze on the slightly pursed lips, and only then looks into yeosang’s eyes. 

l _ooking into hongjoong’s eyes is_ , for some reason, _very easy._

“it means you’re worried about me, yeosang”. 

_being worried about someone — not at all._

  
this was the first time hongjoong had called him by his name.

but now yeosang understands that even then the older pronounced his name in a special way.

  
***

  
when hongjoong will bring him to this roof again much later and will share with him the most personal and intimate thing: “my mother taught me as a child to write on paper what I can’t say out loud, and fold paper planes. this makes it a little easier to remain silent in some situations”, and will offer to try, yeosang, without knowing why, will write on his torn out of the lecture notebook sheet:

“please don’t make me worry about you anymore”, — 

and will fold his first paper plane.

  
***

a week passes before they meet again.

no matter how much yeosang tries to spot the bright top of hongjoong’s head somewhere on campus, he can’t, as if the older doesn’t appear at the university at all. for some reason, he doesn’t want to ask others about hongjoong, as he doesn’t want to answer questions from san, who too aptly connected yeosang’s disappearance from the party and his strange behaviour with one cause-and-effect relationship.

  
  
during this time, yeosang manages to try on a new definition from the online dictionary: “to miss”. 

_“to painfully experience the absence of someone, something”._

the sudden absence of hongjoong really affects him — every time he thinks about the older, yeosang’s _heart aches_ , and if it means missing someone, then he likes it hardly more than to worry about someone. but even so, yeosang continues to think about hongjoong, and to think that maybe he did something wrong. 

because all the time it took them to get home, (and because of the late hour the buses were no longer running, and they had to walk all the way by foot), yeosang saw that hongjoong wanted to say something to him, but for some reason remained silent. perhaps, if yeosang could, he would have read all, that was unspoken, in the older’s dark eyes, in his features, and in his seemingly nervous gestures — but yeosang could not, and hongjoong remained silent.

he remained silent while he looked at yeosang’s face and seemed to be waiting for something, while yeosang himself, lost under this gaze, tried to think of right words to say goodbye.

but yeosang could not say anything, and hongjoong smiled brightly at something (yeosang thought it was the wrong smile) and ruffled yeosang’s hair, saying the only “see you later”. 

yeosang spent the rest of the night without sleep, trying to understand the older. he came to the conclusion that it would be easier to just ask.

  
but hongjoong appears only after a few long days and again unexpectedly — after classes, followed with the surprised san’s sigh, he grabs yeosang by the hand on the porch of the faculty and pulls him somewhere, promising that this time it will be fun, saying that he started wrong last time. he answers unasked questions with a simple “I was sick”.

and he smiles in a way that makes yeosang miss him even more. and he doesn’t understand how this is possible, because the definition said absence, and hongjoong — here he is.

and, for some reason, continues to hold his, yeosang’s, hand.

there are not so many people in the amusement park on a weekday, so the queue for the ferris wheel (“one of the largest in the city” — proudly assures hongjoong) they pass rather quickly. yeosang remembers a few rides on it from his childhood — then they did not cause almost anything inside, but he finds himself hoping that this time everything will be different.

as the trees slowly slide down behind the windows of the booth, yeosang looks at hongjoong, who is sitting opposite — very close, but still further away than he would like. his hair has lost a little colour in the past few days, and now it is a softer shade, more strawberry-pink than red — but yeosang likes it, probably even more. he also wants to touch it with his fingers.

yeosang thinks that he wants to feel all of hongjoong tactile-wise, to know, to understand him at least on this level — and he feels his cheeks getting warm again from that same feeling that tickles his insides.

and hongjoong is smiling, looking out the window of the booth, in a way that yeosang has never seen him smile before — just slightly lifting the corners of his lips and smiling more with his eyes. for some reason, yeosang thinks that this smile means much more than all the others, but he doesn’t see anything outside their booth that could cause this.

only then does he realize that all this time hongjoong has seen his, yeosang’s, reflection in the glass.

this is completely confusing, so yeosang doesn’t even notice how their booth rises high enough for them to see the panorama of the city spread out in front of them.

“do you like it?” — hongjoong asks softly, forcing yeosang to come out of his thoughts and pay attention to what’s outside. yeosang listens to his feelings and nods — he really likes to see the city like this. hongjoong moves from the seat opposite to the one next to him. then — squeezes yeosang’s shoulder lightly with his fingers. “can you feel it taking your breath away?”

yeosang finds it difficult to say. taking his breath away? if this tightness in his chest means that his breath is taking away, then yes. but the tightness in his chest is not from what he sees through the window. and from the fact that he feels hongjoong’s hot breath on the skin of his face and neck.

he wants to turn around, snuggle closer, gently bump into older’s cheek with the tip of his nose… 

“usually, in these situations, when people see something beautiful, they feel joy or delight, like they get happy”, — hongjoong adds quietly, and yeosang turns around to meet the older’s gaze. their faces are only inches apart. hongjoong’s eyes are so strangely bright, his mouth is slightly open, as if he is about to say something else, but gets lost when he finds something in yeosang’s face.

and yeosang, for the first time in his life, doesn’t want to speak or hear what is being said to him. yeah, he doesn’t know what he is feeling, in general, and specifically now, near hongjoong, but for the first time, it’s enough for him just to feel. for the first time, this silence, that hangs between them when they just look at each other, is more than enough. 

he wants to be silent with hongjoong, as long as possible, as carefully as possible, he just wants to look at hongjoong, he just wants to be with hongjoong. but he also wants hongjoong to reduce this insignificant distance between them to a minimum, and maybe… to kiss him?

he probably wants hongjoong to want the same.

and yeosang really thinks that he catches a barely noticeable movement of hongjoong, but instead of everything else, he says again:

“and then they have to smile”.

a sigh escapes yeosang’s lips before he realizes it.

hongjoong, as if recollecting himself, reaches for the phone in his pocket and too clumsily tries to unlock it with slightly trembling fingers — yeosang only notices how his cheeks turn pink, trying, it seems, to reach the colour of his hair. hongjoong opens the camera app and, turning it on the front mode, stretches his arm forward, up and slightly to the side, with his other arm around yeosang’s shoulders.

“smile, yeosang?”

and yeosang smiles, carefully following the older’s lead, feeling hongjoong’s fingers’ grip tighten on his shoulder.

their photo on hongjoong’s instagram turns out to be the only one that hongjoong posts outside of any series, by itself.

  
***

on the second sheet, that becomes a paper plane, yeosang writes: “I’m happy when I look at you and your smile”.

  
***

after a few months, yeosang writes on white paper sheets: “I feel everything you taught me and I feel it for you” almost every day and folds these into paper planes, hoping that one day one of them will fall directly into the hongjoong’s hands. because he still doesn’t know how to say it out loud.

***

hongjoong’s apartment is, for some reason, exactly what yeosang imagined it to be: not very large, with a lot of posters and his own drawings on the walls, with two dozen flower pots by the large window, with a shelf of vintage vinyl and a bookshelf in which yeosang even finds a large number of his own favourite books, with a small low bed in the most inconspicuous corner, and a huge workspace — the only place in the entire apartment that is put in perfect order. 

hongjoong awkwardly ruffles his hair at the back of his head while yeosang looks around, and says something about how it’s been a long time since he had a guest, so it’s not very tidy. yeosang positively doesn’t care. after all, he is not here to evaluate hongjoong’s skills in being tidy. 

  
the last exam of this semester is behind now, and a short break is ahead, and the prospect of not seeing hongjoong all this time gives yeosang almost physically palpable discomfort. so, he does not hesitate to accept the older’s invitation to watch a movie — and this offer was probably also quite spontaneous. yeosang feels something warm inside is chest, when he thinks, that hongjoong, probably, didn’t want to leave, when their little walk after the exam was over and the sky began to noticeably darken.

hongjoong takes out a home projector, pulls the screen on the wall, turns on his laptop and offers yeosang to choose a movie to his taste, and then goes to the kitchen, where he turns out to have a whole supply of chips and other suitable snacks.

yeosang chooses the longest film and is still noticeably surprised at how quickly it ends. he does not follow the plot at all, focusing more on the proximity of hongjoong — they had to half-lie down in bed because there were no other places more suitable for watching the movie in the older’s one-room apartment. in these several months of them hanging out together, yeosang used to be content with little — fleeting touches of hands, quick and impetuous hugs, barely touching knees in the bus, and other such trifles. so, as he snuggles close to hongjoong now, yeosang can’t think about anything else.

but the movie ends, and hongjoong tries to get up. yeosang stops him by holding his hand and forces him to sit back on the bed.

hongjoong doesn’t ask any questions, because he already knows that it’s yeosang who has questions, and yeosang waits until the credits will roll and the room will be silent.

“hyung. all this time, you’ve been teaching me to understand my feelings. and I began to understand them, in fact, much better. but there is something I still don’t understand” — yeosang says quietly, looking at hongjoong’s face, which is barely illuminated by the scant light from the screen — his lips, as always, are drawn back in a soft smile, and his eyebrows are slightly raised, showing his direct interest; his silver piercing glitters brightly, and the long chain of one of the earrings barely swings in the air. and yeosang suddenly feels what hongjoong once called tenderness. yeosang drowns into this feeling, as if warmed milk is being poured in the chest, flowing from his heart through the veins — and the skin crawls, and the breath stumbles for a moment. hongjoong looks and listens intently, trying to guess, it seems, what this conversation will lead to. but yeosang’s next question still puts him in a state of utter confusion: “hyung, what do you feel when _you love someone_?”

hongjoong exhales in surprise. he puts his free hand over yeosang’s, where he is holding his other hand by the wrist, and looks away, biting his lip thoughtfully.

“yeosang-ah, I don’t think I can explain this to you…” — after a couple of long minutes, during which yeosang almost begins to regret he has asked, and worry settles with a heavy ball of air somewhere in his lungs, hongjoong says. “all people are different—”

“no, no, hyung. what do _you_ feel when you _love_ someone?”

hongjoong seems to be completely taken aback. but when he meets yeosang’s confident gaze, he sighs again and closes his eyes, as if trying to put his scattered thoughts together.

“I… want to be as close to them as possible. always see them. feel them. when I think of this person, I begin to feel and notice my own heartbeat. when I touch them, I start to hear my own breathing, which is noticeably heavier than usual. I like to hear their laughter — so rare, but absolutely perfect. listen to them talk. I want to know how their day went. I want them to tell me every dream they have. sometimes when it’s hard for me, I just want to hug them and hold them for a few hours until I feel better—”

“hyung, kiss me?”

“what?”

yeosang is still holding the older’s hand, and when hongjoong, in surprise, tries to pull it free, kang stops him from doing so, carefully intertwining their fingers.

hongjoong looks as if he doesn’t believe his own eyes. the younger one only tightens his grip on his fingers and leans a little forward, leaving only a little space between them. he wants to get rid of it completely, finally feel the lips of hongjoong on his own, but yeosang waits patiently, giving the older time to think.

long seconds pass, and hongjoong still seems to barely understand what is happening, but nevertheless hesitantly, as if not want to frighten, still touches yeosang’s face with his free hand, who clings to this touch trustfully and looks directly into hongjoong’s eyes from under half-lowered lashes. like: _“come on, hyung, I’m all yours”._

as if unconsciously, hongjoong runs his thumb over the younger boy’s cheek, and the latter, like a kitten, pokes the tip of his nose into other’s palm — and then hongjoong gives up.

moving his hand to the back of yeosang’s head, he leans closer, closing the pitiful centimetres between them, and, feeling their breaths mingle, he touches the other’s lips with his own. the first touch is quite brief, almost weightless, but yeosang does not allow it to break for a long time, and presses his lips hongjoong’s again — the second kiss is more confident and longer. and then another, and another, and another.

each next kiss catches up with the previous one faster, is longer and leaves fewer opportunities to take a full breath — and when the chest becomes quite heavy and full, yeosang pulls away just a little, but leaves, unable to resist, another smudged touch to hongjoong’s lower lip and breathes hot, feeling the same hot breath of older. 

yeosang opens his fingers, that were holding onto the fabric of hongjoong’s t-shirt all this time, with quite difficulty, and hugs hongjoong’s neck, snuggling very, very close, and weightlessly kisses his eyes, feeling the long lashes flutter under his lips, kisses the sharp corners of his lips, raised in a barely noticeable smile, kisses the warm cheeks — as if studying this face like he wanted to since long time ago. 

then he pulls back a little and presses hongjoong’s hot palm to his chest, where his heart is beating insanely fast.

“you can feel it, can’t you, hyung?” — yeosang whispers.

“yes”. 

“this is all for you, hyung”. 

and he pulls hongjoong toward him, lying on his back, letting the other’s lips explore in response, while somewhere behind them, an overheated projector is making noise, not being able to bear with air, full of dust. 

  
***

it is unlikely that hongjoong will ever tell yeosang that very different words should have been written inside the very first paper plane that landed directly in the younger’s lap.

_“I’m sorry, but I fell in love with you at first sight”._

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/___mejay)


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